The search for professional services is and has been a continuing need for many years. The types of services needed can relate to financial management, insurance, estate advice, investment management, and retirement planning just to name a few.
Common approaches of finding a professional advisor in the past have comprised personal referrals from a friend or relative, professionals in other fields, published listings in yellow pages, or listings from accredited organizations. However, these approaches have their drawbacks. These approaches are typically subjective and based on the personal or biased ties of the referring party rather than on the specific objective needs of the consumer. Published listings can be inappropriate where there is no qualification or performance rating of the advisors comprised in the published listing. Additionally, referrals by an organization may be biased where that organization only recommends advisors who are members of the organization or who transact business with the organization. Thus, the customer needs are not objectively considered.
Other approaches for finding advisors comprise in-person meetings with professionals to discuss a customer's needs. The professional advisor can then individually consider the customer's needs and make advisor recommendations at a later date. This approach can be productive but is typically time consuming. The approach requires the customer to take time out of his/her day for an in-person meeting with the advisor. This can be difficult if customers have to travel to the meeting or cannot meet during normal business hours. Another approach to find professional advisors has come about as a result of the proliferation of users on the Internet.
The Internet is an interconnection of multiple worldwide networks and computers on a global scale. The networks and computers are tied together by a common protocol, TCP/IP. In the Internet, a “client” computer that is connected to the Internet can download digital information from “server” computers connected to the Internet. Client application and operating system software executing on client computers typically accepts commands from a user and obtains data and services by sending requests to server applications running on server computers connected to the Internet. A number of protocols are used to exchange commands and data between computers connected to the Internet. The protocols comprise Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Gopher and other protocols.
The HTTP protocol is used to access data on the World Wide Web, often referred to as “the Web.” The World Wide Web is a multi-media information service on the Internet providing documents and links between documents. The World Wide Web is made up of numerous Web sites around the world that maintain and distribute Web documents or Web pages. A Web site may use one or more Web server computers that are able to store and distribute documents, to those accessing the Web site, in one of a number of formats including the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). An HTML document can contain text, graphics, audio clips and video clips, or commands providing formatting information. HTML documents can also comprise embedded links, such as URLs, that reference other data or Web pages located on the local computer or network server computers. “URL” is an abbreviation for “Uniform Resource Locator,” the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.
FTP is the protocol used on the Internet for sending files. Further, SMTP is a protocol for sending e-mail messages between servers. Most e-mail systems that send mail over the Internet use SMTP to send messages from one server to another; the messages can then be retrieved with an e-mail client. In addition, SMTP is generally used to send messages from a mail client to a mail server.
A Web browser is a client application, software component, or operating system utility that communicates with server computers via FTP and HTTP protocols, or other protocols. Web browsers receive Web documents (i.e., Web pages) from the network and present them to a user. Internet Explorer, available from Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond, Wash., is an example of a popular Web browser.
The Internet has been growing in popularity and many users have started utilizing their Web browsers to locate, among other things, professional advisors. As a result, many professional advisors have begun to advertise their services on the Internet to attract new customers. These advertisements typically take the form of web pages or web sites that can be accessed and viewed by anyone having access to a computer with a browser, e.g., Internet Explorer. However, advisor web site advertisements typically only contain information about a particular advisor and the services being offered. There may be a contact phone number or e-mail address where a viewer can send inquiries. A user may usually visit various advisors Web sites to learn about different services offered. Additionally, the drawbacks mentioned above, i.e., subjective and biased referrals, are also present in this web-based approach to finding professional advisors. A customer is still unable to objectively find a professional advisor that can match his needs. There is thus a need for an on-line advisor referral tool that can objectively match customers needing professional services and professional advisors offering them.